Italy, the Magic Land Part 12

The n.o.ble Greek ruins at Paestum--the three temples--stand in all the majesty of utter desolation. They are overgrown with flowers, however, and they stand "dewy in the light of the rising dawn-star."

"The shrine is ruined now, and far away To east and west stretch olive groves, whose shade, Even at the height of summer noon, is gray.

"Yet this was once a hero's temple, crowned With myrtle boughs by lovers, and with palm By wrestlers, resonant with sweetest sound Of flute and fife in summer evening's calm, And odorous with incense all the year, With nard and spice and galbanum and balm."

The detour to Paestum is full of significance. The ma.s.sive columns of the temples stand like giants of the ages. "It is difficult," writes John Addington Symonds, "not to return again and again to the beauty of coloring at Paestum. Lying basking in the sun on a flat slab of stone, and gazing eastward, we overlook a foreground of dappled light and shadow; then come two stationary columns built, it seems, of solid gold, where the sunbeams strike along their russet surface. Between them lies the landscape, a medley first of brakefern and asphodel and feathering acanthus and blue spikes; while beyond and above is a glimpse of mountains, purple almost to indigo with cloud shadows, and flecked with snow."

The sail from Amalfi to Paestum is one incomparable in loveliness. The sunshine is all lurid gold. The faint, transparent blue haze fills all the defiles of the mountains; the cliffs disclose yawning caverns where vast cl.u.s.ters of stalact.i.tes hang; and as the boat floats toward Capri from the Sorrento promontory its rocky headlands rise and flame into purple and rose against the glowing sky. Across the Bay of Naples rises the great city. It stands in some subtle way reminding one of the scene where one

"... rowing hard against the stream, Saw distant gates of Eden gleam."

Capri is the idyllic island of prismatic light and shade, of gay and joyous life. Here Tiberius had his summer palace, and it was from these sh.o.r.es that he sent the historic letter which revolutionized the life of Seja.n.u.s. The letter--_verbosa et grandis epistola_--is still vivid in the historic a.s.sociations of Rome. Capri is one of the favorite resorts both for winter and summer. Its former modest prices are now greatly increased, like all the latter-day expenses of Italy; but its beauty is perennial, and the artist and poet can still command there a seclusion almost impossible to secure elsewhere in Italy. The distinguished artist, Elihu Vedder of Rome, has a country house on Capri, and another well-known artist, Charles Caryl Coleman, makes this island his home.

There are days--sometimes several days in succession--that the sea is high and the boats cannot run between Naples, Sorrento, and Capri; and the enforced seclusion is still the seclusion of the poet's dream. For he shares it with Mithras, the "unconquered G.o.d of the sun," whose cult influenced all the monarchs of Europe and who holds his court in the Grotto de Matrimonia. Into this grotto one descends by a flight of nearly two hundred feet; he strolls among the ruins of the villa of Tiberius, where the very air is still vital and vocal with those strange and tragic chapters of Roman life. The Emperor Augustus first founded here palaces and aqueducts. Tiberius, who retired to Capri in the year 27 A.D., had his architects build twelve villas, in honor of the G.o.ds, the largest of these being for Jupiter and known as the Villa Jovis. In 31 A.D. occurred that dramatic episode in Roman history, the fall of Seja.n.u.s, and six years later Tiberius died. The vast white marble baths he had built for him are now submerged on the coast, and boats glide over the spot where they stood. The Villa Jovis stood on a cliff seven hundred feet above the sea, and the traditions of the barbarities and atrocities that took place there still haunt the island. The natives apparently regard them as a certain t.i.tle to fame, but the wise tourists persistently ignore horrors; life is made for joy, sweetness, and charm; it is far wiser to think on these things.

And there is charm and joy to spare on lovely Capri. "Sea-mists are frequent in the early summer mornings, swathing the cliffs of Capri and brooding on the smooth water till the day wind rises," says John Addington Symonds. "Then they disappear like magic, rolling in smoke-wreaths from the surface of the sea, condensing into clouds and climbing the hills like Oceanides in quest of Prometheus, or taking their station on the watch towers of the world as in the chorus of the Nephelai. Such a morning may be chosen for the _giro_ of the island. The Blue Grotto loses nothing of its beauty, but rather gains by contrast, when pa.s.sing from dense fog you find yourself transported to a world of wavering subaqueous sheen. It is only through the very topmost arch that a boat can glide into this cavern; the arch itself spreads downward through the water so that all the light is transmitted from beneath and colored by the sea. Outside the magic world of pantomime there is nothing to equal these effects of blue and silver.... Numberless are the caves at Capri. The so-called Green Grotto has the beauty of moss agate in its liquid floor; the Red Grotto shows a warmer chord of color; and where there is no other charm to notice, endless beauty may be found in the play of sunlight upon roofs of limestone, tinted with yellow, orange, and pale pink, mossed over, hung with fern, and catching tones of blue or green from the still deeps beneath.... After a day upon the water it is pleasant to rest at sunset in the loggia above the sea. The Bay of Naples stretches far and wide in front, beautiful by reason of the long fine line descending from Vesuvius, dipping almost to a level, and then gliding up to join the highlands of the north. Now sun and moon begin to mingle: waning and waxing splendors. The cliffs above our heads are still blushing like the heart of some tea-rose; when lo, the touch of the huntress is laid upon those eastern pinnacles, and the horizon glimmers with her rising. Was it on such a night that Ferdinand of Aragon fled from his capital before the French, with eyes turned ever to the land he loved, chanting, as he leaned from his galley's stern, that melancholy psalm, 'Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain,' and seeing Naples dwindle to a white blot on the purple sh.o.r.e?"

The roses of Capri would form a chapter alone. What walks there are where the air is all fragrance of acacia and rose and orange blossoms!

Cascades of roses in riotous luxuriance festoon the old gray stone walls; the pale pink of the early dawn or of a sh.e.l.l by the seash.o.r.e, the amber of the Banskeia rose, the great golden ma.s.ses of the Marechal Niel, their faint yellow gleaming against the deep green leaves of myrtle and frond. The intense glowing scarlet of the gladiolus flames from rocks and roadside, and rosemary and the purple stars of hyacinths garland the ways, until one feels like journeying only in his singing robes. The deep, solemn green of stone pines forms canopies under the sapphire skies, and through their trunks one gazes on the sapphire sea.

Is Capri the isle of Epipsychidion?

"Is there now any one that knows What a world of mystery lies deep down in the heart of a rose?"

One walks among these rose-lined lanes, hearing in the very air that exquisite lyric by Louise Chandler Moulton:--

"Roses that briefly live, Joy is your dower; Blest be the Fates that give One perfect hour.

And, though too soon you die, In your dust glows Something the pa.s.ser-by Knows was a Rose."

Monte Ca.s.sino is one of the most interesting inland points in Southern Italy,--the monastery lying on the crest of a hill nearly two thousand feet above the sea. Dante alludes to this in his Paradiso (XXII, x.x.xVII), and in the prose translation made by that eminent Dantean scholar, Professor Charles Eliot Norton, this a.s.surance of Beatrice to Dante is thus rendered:--

"That mountain on whose slope Ca.s.sino is, was of old frequented on its summit by the deluded and ill-disposed people, and I am he who first carried up thither the name of Him who brought to earth the truth which so high exalts us; and such grace shone upon me that I drew away the surrounding villages from the impious worship which seduced the world. Those other fires were all contemplative men, kindled by that heat which brings to birth holy flowers and fruits.

Here is Macarius, here is Romuald, here are my brothers, who within the cloisters fixed their feet, and held a steadfast heart. And I to him, 'The affection which thou displayest in speaking with me, and the good semblance which I see and note in all your ardors, have so expanded my confidence as the sun does the rose, when she becomes open so much as she has power to be. Therefore I pray thee, and do thou, father, a.s.sure me if I have power to receive so much grace, that I may see thee with uncovered shape.' Whereon he, 'Brother, thy high desire shall be fulfilled in the last sphere, where are fulfilled all others and my own. There perfect, mature, and whole is every desire; in that alone is every part there where it always was: for it is not in s.p.a.ce, and hath not poles; and our stairway reaches up to it, wherefore thus from thy sight it conceals itself. Far up as there the patriarch Jacob saw it stretch its topmost part when it appeared to him so laden with Angels. But now no one lifts his feet from earth to ascend it; and my rule is remaining as waste of paper. The walls, which used to be an abbey, have become caves; and the cowls are sacks full of bad meal. But heavy usury is not gathered in so greatly against the pleasure of G.o.d, as that fruit which makes the heart of monks so foolish. For whatsoever the Church guards is all for the folk that ask it in G.o.d's name, not for one's kindred, or for another more vile. The flesh of mortals is so soft that a good beginning suffices not below from the springing of the oak to the forming of the acorn.

Peter began without gold and without silver, and I with prayers and with fasting, and Francis in humility his convent; and if thou lookest at the source of each, and then lookest again whither it has run, thou wilt see dark made of the white. Truly, Jordan turned back, and the sea fleeing when G.o.d willed, were more marvellous to behold than succor here."

Dante adds that the company "like a whirlwind gathered itself upward,"

and that "the sweet lady urged me behind them, with only a sign, up over that stairway; so did her virtue overcome my nature. But never here below, where one mounts and descends naturally, was there motion so rapid that it could be compared unto my wing."

The time was when Dante and Beatrice met, and he "was standing as one who within himself represses the point of his desire, and attempts not to ask, he so fears the too-much." And then he heard: "If thou couldst see, as I do, the charity which burns among us thy thoughts would be expressed. But that thou through waiting mayst not delay thy high end, I will make answer to thee, even to the thought concerning which thou art so regardful."

The vast monastery of Monte Ca.s.sino, lying on the crest of a hill nearly two thousand feet above the sea, has one of the most magnificent locations in all Italy. This monastery was founded (in 529 A.D.) by St.

Benedict, on the site of an ancient temple to Apollo. Dante alludes to this also in the Paradiso (Canto XX, 11). As seen from below this monastery has the appearance of a vast castle, or fortress. Its location is one of the most magnificent in all Italy. The old entrance was a curious pa.s.sage cut through solid rock and it is still used for princes and cardinals--no lesser dignitaries being allowed to pa.s.s through it--and within the past thirty years a new entrance has been constructed. In the pa.s.sageway of the mediaeval entrance St. Benedict is said to have had his cell, and of recent years the German Benedictines, believing they had located the original cell, had it located, restored, and decorated with Egyptian frescoes. Several of the courts of this convent are connected by beautiful arcades with lofty arches, and adorned with statues, among which are those of St. Benedict and his sister, St. Scholastica. Still farther up the hill, upon the monastery, stands the church which is built on the site of the ancient one that was erected by St. Benedict himself--this present edifice dating back to 1637. Above the portals there is a long inscription in Latin relating the history of the monastery and the church. These portals are solid bronze, beautifully carved, with inlaid tablets of silver on which are inscribed a list of all the treasures of the abbey in the year 1006. The church is very rich in interior decoration of mosaics, rare marbles, and wonderful monumental memorials. Either side of the high altar are monuments to the Prince of Mignano (Guidone Fieramosca) and also to Piero de Medico. Both St. Benedict and his sister, St. Scholastica, are entombed under the high altar, which is one of the most elaborately sculptured in all the churches of Italy.

Among the pictorial decorations of this church are a series of fresco paintings by Luca Giordano, painted in the seventeenth century, representing the miracles wrought by St. Benedict. In the refectory is the "Miracle of the Loaves," by Ba.s.sano; and in the chapel below are paintings by Mazzaroppi and Marco da Siena. Nothing can exceed the richness and beauty of the carvings of the choir stalls. These were executed in the seventeenth century by Coliccio.

The library of this monastery is renowned all over Europe--indeed, it is famous all over the world--for its preservation of ancient ma.n.u.scripts done by the monks. These are carefully treasured in the archives. Among them is the record of a vision that came to the monk Alferic, in the twelfth century, on which it is believed that Dante founded his immortal "Divina Commedia;" there is also a fourteenth-century edition of Dante with margined notes; and the Commentary of Origen (on the Epistle to the Romans), dating back to the sixteenth century; there is the complete series of Papal bulls that were sent to the monastery of Monte Ca.s.sino from the eleventh century to the present time, many of them being richly illuminated and decorated with curiously elaborate seals. There is an autograph letter of the Sultan Mohammed II to Pope Nicholas IV, with the Pope's reply,--the theme of the correspondence being the Pope's threat of war. The imperial Mohammed seems to have been in terror of this, and in his epistle he expresses his willingness, and, indeed, his intention, to be converted as soon as he shall visit Rome!

Apparently the Holy Father of that day laid little stress on the sincerity of this offer on the part of the Sultan. Here, too, is a wonderful correspondence between Don Erasmo Gattola, the historian of the abbey, and a great number of the celebrated men of his time; and there are hundreds of other letters, ma.n.u.scripts, and doc.u.ments relating to kings, n.o.bles, emperors, and many of the n.o.bility of the age.

In this monastery there is a most interesting collection of relics, in bronze, silver, gold, and _rosso antico_. The library proper contains some eleven thousand volumes, dating back to the very dawn of the discovery of the art of printing.

Mr. Longfellow, whose poet's pen has pictured so many of the Italian landscapes and ancient monuments, thus set Monte Ca.s.sino to music, picturing the entire landscape of the Terra di Lavoro region:--

"The Land of Labor and the Land of Rest, Where mediaeval towns are white on all The hillsides, and where every mountain's crest Is an Etrurian or a Roman wall.

"There is Aquinum, the old Volscian town, Where Juvenal was born, whose lurid light Still hovers o'er his birthplace like the crown Of splendor seen o'er cities in the night.

"Doubled the splendor is, that in its streets The Angelic Doctor as a school-boy played, And dreamed perhaps the dreams that he repeats In ponderous folios for scholastics made.

"And there, uplifted, like a pa.s.sing cloud That pauses on a mountain summit high, Monte Ca.s.sino's convent rears its proud And venerable walls against the sky.

"Well I remember how on foot I climbed The stony pathway leading to its gate; Above, the convent bells for vespers chimed, Below, the darkening town grew desolate.

"The silence of the place was like a sleep, So full of rest it seemed; each pa.s.sing tread Was a reverberation from the deep Recesses of the ages that are dead.

"For, more than thirteen centuries ago, Benedict fleeing from the gates of Rome, A youth disgusted with its vice and woe, Sought in these mountain solitudes a home.

"He founded here his Convent and his Rule Of prayer and work, and counted work as prayer; The pen became a clarion, and his school Flamed like a beacon in the midnight air.

"From the high window, I beheld the scene On which Saint Benedict so oft had gazed,-- The mountains and the valley in the sheen Of the bright sun,--and stood as one amazed.

"The conflict of the Present and the Past, The ideal and the actual in our life, As on a field of battle held me fast, Where this world and the next world were at strife."

The monastery of Monte Ca.s.sino entertains, as its guests, for dinner or for a night, all gentlemen who visit it; but there is an alms box on the ancient gate into which the guest is supposed to place whatever contribution he pleases for the poor of the place. The Italian government, in 1866, declared this monastery to be a "Monumento n.a.z.ionale," and it is now a famous ecclesiastical school with some two hundred students and a resplendent faculty of fifty learned monks under the direction of the Abbot. Some of the most celebrated prelates in Europe have been educated at Monte Ca.s.sino.

Quite near Monte Ca.s.sino, as Longfellow depicts in his lines, is Monte Aquino, a picturesque hillside where the "Doctor Angelicus," Thomas Aquinas, was born (in 1224), the son of Count Landulf, in the Castel Roccasecca. He was educated in the monastery, and one finds himself recalling here these lines of Thomas William Parsons, ent.i.tled "Turning from Darwin to Thomas Aquinas:"--

"Unless in thought with thee I often live, Angelic doctor! life seems poor to me.

What are these bounties, if they only be Such boon as farmers to their servants give?

That I am fed, and that mine oxen thrive, That my lambs fatten, that mine hours are free-- These ask my nightly thanks on bended knee; And I do thank Him who hath blest my hive, And made content my herd, my flock, my bee.

But, Father! n.o.bler things I ask from Thee.

Fishes have sunshine, worms have everything!

Are we but apes? Oh! give me, G.o.d, to know I am death's master; not a scaffolding, But a true temple where Christ's word could grow."

It was at Aquinum, too, at the foot of Monte Aquino, Juvenal was born.

Near the peaks of Monte Ca.s.sino and Monte Aquino is that of Monte Cairo, five thousand five hundred feet high, from whose summit one of the finest views of all southern Europe is attained. The Gulf of Gaeta, the valley of San Germano, the wild and romantic mountain region of the Abruzzi and a view, too, of the blue sea are in the panorama, bathed in the opalescent, gleaming lights that often invest the Italian landscape with jewelled splendor.

"I ask myself, Is this a dream?

Will it all vanish into air?

Is there a land of such supreme And perfect beauty, anywhere?"